In the past, engineers who designed and maintained aircraft created or relied on detailed two-dimensional (2D) drawings of all the aircraft parts on large sheets of Mylar or similar media in which the drawings were numbered in a logical manner. This logical numbering of drawings enabled engineers, technicians and maintenance persons familiar with the drawing organization (or, “drawing tree”) to locate the design details of a system (e.g., main landing gear, hydraulic pump) to facilitate a number of functions from manufacture to troubleshooting to assembly/disassembly for maintenance.
Many large and complex aircraft and other similar structures are today designed using computer aided design (CAD) software that enables the digital design and display of the structure in three-dimensions (3D). Display of an aircraft and its parts in 3D has many advantages over 2D drawings. As compared to 2D drawings, a 3D display enables engineers, technicians and maintenance persons to more easily understand how the aircraft is assembled and it makes it much easier to visualize individual parts and find out information about the part (e.g., part number and part name).
Notwithstanding its improvement over 2D drawings, a 3D model of a large and complex structure such as an aircraft presents its own challenges. The 3D model of a modern aircraft composed of millions of individual parts may be greater than 4 terabytes in size. The size of the 3D model and limitations of computing hardware make it difficult, if even possible, to view all of the parts at one time. Unless the user has access to a super-computer, which is not commonly available, the user cannot view the entire aircraft at one time.
Therefore it would be desirable to have a system and method that takes into account at least some of the issues discussed above, as well as other possible issues.